An alleged boiler room employee has pled guilty for his part in a scam operated from Montreal, Canada.
Mark Levine, of Brooklyn, pled guilty to two counts of a conspiracy and mail fraud indictment.
The case was solved by a cross-border task force called “Project Colt.”
U.S. attorneys told the court that had the case gone to trial, they would have documented that Levine and 25 other people had worked for years for a fraudulent telemarketing boiler room.
Levine and others called senior citizens, posing as government officials. Victims were told that they were going to receive a large “recovery check,” totaling $200,000 to $350,000.
However, before the check could be released, victims were told that they had to prepay Canadian taxes, ranging from 10% to 25% of the recovery sum.
Victims were taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to U.S. attorneys.
Sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 18. Levine faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on each count, plus a $250,000 fine. Levine is now in federal custody on unrelated charges.
“We will continue to investigate and prosecute crimes that target the most vulnerable members of our society,” said U.S. Attorney James B. Farmer in a statement.
The plea was made in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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